Chippewa Valley Residents Hit Streets for 4th "No Kings" Rally

Chippewa Valley residents took to the streets once again over the weekend for the fourth iteration of the nationwide "No Kings" rallies.

The local rallies, organized by Chippewa Valley Indivisible, took place at Owen Park in Eau Claire and the Peace Circle in downtown Chippewa Falls on Saturday. Cyndi Greening, an organizer with Chippewa Valley Indivisible, highlighted encouraging residents to vote early beginning this week as the focus of the events.

"Today we're at the No Kings 4 rally," she said. "So it's to bring people out and remind them to vote, we want people to get out and vote. It's a nonpartisan event, we're a nonpartisan group, which doesn't mean neutral. So we're nonpartisan but we have strong opinions about, you know, what we would like for people. And so the purpose of this event is to get people out to early vote on the 20th, and so that we can have the biggest early vote in the history of this country, and then get them to vote on Election Day if they don't make it that day."

Greening also explained why encouraging early voting was chosen to be the theme for this iteration of the No Kings rallies, as concerns over election integrity continue to grow with just weeks until the midterm elections.

"There's a thing called the red wave," she said. "So normally when there's voting, on the first day oftentimes it looks like the Republican is the winner. But as more of the mail-in vote and some of the other vote comes in, suddenly the blue vote overtakes it, which makes the other side claim that the vote was inaccurate. It's actually always been this way, but it's to try to get that early vote in so that people can see, earlier and more clearly, the ballots."

Chippewa Valley Indivisible organizers estimated a crowd of about 1,500 for the rally in Eau Claire and a crowd of about 450 for the rally in Chippewa Falls. Previous iterations of the No Kings rallies have focused on issues like healthcare affordability, immigration enforcement action, and tariffs.